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The systematic and brutal massacre of school children and teachers in a school in Peshawar needs to be condemned in the strongest terms. No cause can justify this. And under no circumstances can either a state or non state actor possibly justify such concerted brutality......read more

We are astounded to learn that the Supreme Court has rejected the review petition of Surinder Koli today, finding no error that could have persuaded them to review the earlier order of the court......read more

19th September marks the sixth anniversary of the Batla House ‘encounter’. Six years ago, on this day, the Special Cell of Delhi Police claimed to have hit upon the perpetrators of the serial blasts that had struck the capital city the previous week.....read more

Rule of Law requires that policemen who engage in killing prove that they fired in self defence; that the force they used was necessary and proportional to the threat they faced. This can only be proved in a court of law or in a free and fair enquiry....read more

On 9 July, 2014 the well-known historian Dr. Mridu Rai was scheduled to deliver the Annual Pandit Rughonath Vaishnavi Lecture at a hotel in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. She was invited by a noted Valley-based human rights group, Coalition of Civil Society (CCS),to deliver a talk....read more

Mukul Sinha’s death remained largely beyond the limelight amid the din over Narendra Modi’s anointment as the next Prime Minister. His steadfastly resolve and meticulous eye for detail, strengths he demonstrated while dealing with hostile administration in several cases, will remain a guiding light for many activists....read more

The Gadchiroli I.G. claims that it was the court’s issuance of a non-bailable warrant in FIR case number 3017/2013 (Aheri PS, Distt. Gadchiroli) against Prof. G.N. Saibaba that led them to arrest him. Did the court also order that a person who suffers 90 per cent disability be blindfolded and abducted....read more

The reporting in the media following the arrest of four youths in Rajasthan, alleged to be Indian Mujahideen operatives, by the Delhi Police Special Cell fell even below the low standards the media has set for itself on terror reporting. Forget about the use of the mandatory ‘alleged’ before calling those arrested as terrorists – one would think it is no longer even on the curricula of media ethics....read more

It is an abject shame that Penguin will pulp Prof. Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History. That this decision was reached in a deal with the petitioners, with no consultation with the author compounds the folly. Coming in the wake of Oxford University Press’ similar meek surrender by suspending publication of Paula Richman’s Many Ramayanas ...read more

In what is surely a landmark judgement, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India has commuted the death sentence of 15 persons, including one female, to life sentence. With this judgement, the real and repugnant possibility of 15 executions in the near future has been allayed....read more

Today, even if grudgingly, there is an admission in the mainstream discourse that people may be framed and implicated in false terror cases, often only on grounds of their religious affiliation. Investigations into Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts are two prominent examples of this prejudice. There are however, across the country, scores of ‘terror’ cases, which have resulted in the incarceration of hundreds of men, mostly on the basis of alleged ‘seized literature’ and nothing else......read more

On 11 December, 2013 a two judge bench of the Supreme Court of India (SC) ruled that section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which considers homosexuality a criminal offence, does not ‘suffer from the vice of unconstitutionality’ and hence, legally valid. ...read more

The remark by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at a political rally that Pakistani agencies have established contact with riot-hit Muslims in Muzaffarnagar reinforces the stereotypes being peddled by Indian intelligence and security agencies to justify their communal witch-hunts....read more

19th September marks five years of the Batla House ‘encounter’. Neither was this encounter unique nor the last in our long and shameful history of extra judicial violence. It has however come to symbolize how Constitutional principles are undermined and all safeguards subverted to protect a system based on impunity. The NHRC guidelines were not followed and no magisterial enquiry was allowed into the Batla House ‘encounter’, as indeed happens with a large proportion of all encounters.....read more

On 12 September, 2013 in a joint operation led by the National Investigative Agency (NIA), Special Cell, Delhi Police, Aheri Police Station, Gadchiroli, Maharashtra and Maurice Nagar Police Station, Delhi the house of G. N. Saibaba, a noted civil rights activist and professor of English at Ramlal Anand College, University of Delhi, was raided...read more

There have been news reports citing sources that the Ministry of Home Affairs is mulling providing legal aid to those facing ‘doubtful’ terror charges. First, one doubts the seriousness of even this limited claim, given that in March this year the Minorities Affairs...read more

Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA), Wednesday, 31st July 2013 released its latest report, ‘Beyond Reasonable Doubt? The Conviction of Shahzad Ahmad’. The document analyzes the judgment delivered by the Additional Session Judge-02, Rajender Kumar Shastri, in the State verus Shahzad Ahmad case (widely known as Batla House ‘encounter’ case....read more

The 2008 ‘encounter’ at Batla House resulted in the death of two young men, Atif Ameen and Md. Sajid, and an Inspector of Delhi Special Cell, Mohan Chand Sharma. The trial, widely known as the Batla House ‘encounter’ trial, is essentially a trial about the death of Inspector Sharma...read more

It is a clear indication of the desperation being felt by the IB establishment as the heat turns on its senior officers in the Ishrat Jahan probe, that they are down to doing what they do best: use pliant sections of the media to plant stories to deflect scrutiny and create a favourable public mood.

Exactly one year after the CRPF mowed down 19 villagers who had gathered to celebrate the traditional seed festival in their village in Bijapur district, the act has been repeated: the same festival, the same district, the same class of unfortunate villagers, and the same set of killers. In an 'encounter' that villagers in Chhattisgarh allege to be fake, security forces killed 8 villagers near Edasmeta village in Bijapur district on Friday night. Three of those killed were minors.

Khalid Mujahid, proclaimed by the police as one of the executors of the serial blasts that rocked UP courts in November 2007, died in police custody yesterday (18th May 2013). This young man, with no past medical record, the police claim died of sudden medical complications, on his way back to Lucknow prison, having made his appearance in court in Barabanki in connection with the serial blasts case. In 2011, a report, Torture in India, had documented how custodial killings were rampantly passed off as sudden medical complications and natural deaths (ACHR, p. 8).

Last year, JTSA compiled and released a report documenting 16 cases where the Delhi Police, especially its Special Cell, had framed innocents as terrorists. An overwhelming number of these unfortunate men were from Kashmir. Despite the fact that we cited court judgements which reprimanded the Cell for refusing to join independent witnesses, for willfully violating established procedures, for illegally detaining accused and showing their arrests on later dates; for fabricating evidence and failing to provide an iota of evidence in support of their charges – neither the leadership of the Delhi police nor the Home Ministry felt the need for any enquiry.

We the undersigned condemn the sinister attempts to malign and hound activists engaged in ensuring justice for the victims of state sponsored violence against the minorities in Gujarat. In what has now become a pattern, powerful vested interests close to the ruling party in Gujarat, have again attacked Teesta Setalvad and Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP).

In a grotesque replay of every investigation that follows a bomb blast, prejudice, misinformation and media blitz rules the direction of Dilsukh Nagar bombings investigation too. The same suspects and shadowy organizations are being paraded as executors of the Hyderabad bombings.

But should we be surprised? A day after the Home Minister’s humiliating capitulation to the RSS-BJP, virtually giving them and their affiliates a clean chit, the message to the investigating agencies must have been crystal clear.